


The School for Lovers

by middlemarch



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies), Frozen 2 - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Family, Games, Gen, Husbands, Marriage, Reading, Romance, Secrets, Sisters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 23:41:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21687694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: An education, in at least two lessons.
Relationships: Anna & Elsa (Disney), Anna/Kristoff (Disney), Elsa & Kristoff (Disney)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 37





	1. Chapter 1

I.

When he came right down to it, there was no one else Kristoff could confess his secret to. There was no one in Arendelle he knew well enough, no one he trusted enough and his troll family could not help him. Olaf’s ability to keep a confidence rivalled his ability to carry water in a sieve, so Kristoff wouldn’t risking telling him, despite his undoubted exuberant support. Kristoff made his decision but he was forced to wait to act; the tides were not his to command. He knew how to wait to harvest ice and to pause before a mountain pass—he could bear his secret alone until the time was right. When the moment best suited to his purpose arrived, he was ready and he spoke.

“Elsa, there’s something I need to ask you.”

Kristoff rarely saw the resemblance between Anna and her sister, their mannerisms and coloring so unlike that he only glimpsed it in the delicate architecture of a wrist, the way their skin reminded him of petals, though Elsa was like a snowdrop and Anna a blushing primrose. Now, though, Elsa’s look of surprise, her utter, entire, taken-aback-ness, was an expression he recognized. Recognizing it, he knew he’d been right.

“You need something from me, Kristoff?” Elsa said. Sometimes, a person’s voice went funny, odd, all whispery or blue thunder from being alone too long in the mountains. It came from not talking to another living soul, not even a taciturn reindeer, but Elsa must have been conversing with someone, even if they were spirits; she sounded much as she ever had except that the quality of restraint in her tone was gone. She spoke as if she were singing, as if she heard a melody all the time which delighted her. He decided to take it as a good omen.

“A favor.”

“I’ll promise I’ll do my best to grant it. I don’t believe you’ve ever asked me for anything before in our lives,” she said. She was right, he hadn’t, because he wouldn’t have expected to have a queen to approach and he wouldn’t have expected to her say anything but _I’m afraid the answer is no_. Now, she was no longer a queen and it might not be so hard to agree.

“I want you to teach me to read,” he said simply as there was no point in adding anything else.

“Teach you to read? You can’t read?” she repeated. She’d started out incredulous but then something altered, made so much sense she gave up being astonished and pitying.

“No, not really. I was orphaned young, I never went to school. The other icemen tried to show me a little, taught me my name and numbers, but that was about it. I learned enough to get by, but it’s not enough anymore,” he explained.

“Oh. I see. But why me? Why don’t you ask Anna?” Elsa said. This was the real question he’d been preparing for, because he imagined he’d have to answer it twice. Once when Elsa asked and once when Anna did and the answer wouldn’t be exactly the same.

“I had to ask someone I trust. Someone I knew could teach me properly, not just to muddle my way through a children’s primer. Someone who would make sure I learned enough to keep from embarrassing a queen,” he said.

“She wouldn’t be embarrassed by you, Kristoff. She wouldn’t judge you,” Elsa replied.

“I know. That’s not why I’m asking you. I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t care about you the way I care about her. It’s hard enough being the queen, dealing with all she’s learned about her family—I don’t want to ask her to do anything more. I want to be able to read to her at night and I don’t want her to have to do anything to make that happen. I want to be able to tell her you helped me—she’ll like that,” he said. He thought of all the nights Anna got through dinner through sheer will alone and then struggled to wade through some papers or a book in their private chambers. He thought of the shelves she’d put in their rooms, crowded with books she’d announced she considered dear, very dear friends, a little perplexed when he hadn’t seemed to know any of their titles.

“I’ve never taught anyone to read before, I don’t know I’ll be any good at it,” Elsa said.

“You’ll do well enough. You always have before, whenever anything’s been asked of you. And this shouldn’t be **that** difficult. I’m not a genius and I know I talk too much to Sven but I’ve got more than ice between my ears. I’m willing to study hard. It’s not much of a task, doing something for someone you love,” he said.

“No, it’s not, is it? And then, maybe you’ll even enjoy it? The palace library is extensive—I’m sure we can find something you’d like to read, maybe about the mountains or reindeer husbandry,” Elsa said. 

“I want to read what Anna wants to hear,” he said.

“I know, but that’s not enough. She won’t want you to read just for her. She’ll want you to read to please yourself. She wouldn’t be happy about it otherwise,” Elsa said firmly.

“You understand her very well,” he said, letting her hear his evaluation with the acknowledgement. She smiled, a smile he’d never seen on Anna’s face.

“I may have gone away, but I haven’t left,” she said. She didn’t explain, let him wonder what she meant. “I must fly if I’m to be ready for our first lesson tonight. Anna has a meeting with the Frankish ambassador that will keep her busy for at least an hour—charming man but he does like to talk! Let’s see what we can get accomplished then. You can meet me in the library.”


	2. Chapter 2

II.

Kristoff was bored. He was cooped up inside the palace and growing more restive with every day, even though Anna had spoken to the staff and made it clear no one should say anything, not one blessed word about the Lord of Tyholmen’s choice of dress, which was a mix of worn leather trews and even rattier quilted vests over woolen sweaters no sheep would ever admit to being a part of. He’d stopped shaving after a week and Anna had a not-so-secret weakness for his rough, gold beard, even though she recognized it represented the beginning of a decline. The weather that kept them in would have been nothing to him when he lived in the mountains and there was part of him that couldn’t stand it, that freedom he’d sacrificed in becoming her husband. If she were more generous, perhaps she would have told him to take Sven and remove to their private retreat, go ice fishing and roast potatoes in ashes but she’d found she was more selfish as Queen Anna than she might have been as the princess. She couldn’t bear to let him go when she couldn’t follow, couldn’t bear worrying about him even though she knew, logically, he’d be perfectly safe and all her fretting was worth one of his most scoffing snorts. The thought of nights alone in their bed, no matter how well her ladies-in-waiting warmed it with copper pans full of coals and rosewater sprinkled on the linens, were anathema to her. She could not leave Arendelle in the depths of winter and so neither could Kristoff. And if he could not leave, something must be done. The note she left, written in her own angular hand, the paper liberally splotched with ink, was brief.

_Meet me in the tower after my last audience with the Swabians_

She didn’t sign it. He wouldn’t need to see any version of her name to know she’d written it. She didn’t wonder if he’d come; he might be irritable, grumbling, sullen and almost beetle-browed, but he was never spiteful.

“You need some fun,” she declared, sailing into the room with as if she wore her crown and the cloth-of-gold cape that trailed five feet behind her. She was actually dressed in her favorite kirtle and a simple blouse any Arendellen countrywoman would wear to the market, a basket for turnips and barley buns held in the crook of her elbow. Her hair was tied back with a ribbon and she’d scrubbed the cosmetics required for court off her face with enough vigor her cheeks stung.

“Fat chance of that here,” Kristoff said gloomily. His shirt collar was open and the firelight made the hollow at his throat especially delicious.

“I think you may be surprised. There’s your ale in that bucket, it should be properly chilled, and there’s that partridge and oyster pie you like. I had Cook make a big batch of rommegrot for afters. And I’m going to teach you to play Hnefetafl!”

“Hnefetafl?” 

“I hope you mean, ‘Hnefetafl, what’s that?’ and not, ‘Hnefetafl-- silly Anna, of course I already know how to play!’” she exclaimed. “Or I suppose you could mean ‘Hnefetafl, who’d play that, it’s older than time!’ though if you do, you’re wrong because it’s stood the test of time, really it has.” 

“I meant I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, but I’m guessing it’s a game,” Kristoff said. He sounded bemused, which was a refreshing change. 

“It’s the granite of strategy lattice board games and I know how fond you are of rocks, just look at you and Pabbie, thick as thieves, except you’re both so honest,” she said, babbling a little because he was smiling at her now, a warm, knowing smile she hadn’t seen for over a week, and he’d settled down in one of the armchairs she’d drawn up to a low table. If he kept looking at her like he was, there’d be no game of Hnefetafl, the ale would sit untroubled in its cask, and an entire dish of rommegrot would be untouched. She didn’t care so much about the meal, but she would like to teach him the rules of the game. 

“So, teach me,” he said.

“The first thing you need to know is that the king wants to escape and all these pieces, they’re soldiers basically, they want to surround and capture him,” Anna explained, gesturing at the single larger figure in black walnut and the lighter alder pieces on the periphery of the board.

“Do the soldiers have a leader? A captain or another king?” Kristoff asked.

“No, they just work together,” she said.

“I don’t think Mattias would find this very believable,” Kristoff said wryly.

“Well, believable or not, those are the rules. Also, some people use dice but my father always said they introduced too much luck into the game and ruined it, so I don’t. Plus, I lost the dice,” she said. Kristoff laughed. She went through the remainder of the rules briefly, Kristoff nodding along, taking it all in. 

Anna had prepared to go easy on him, seeing as how he was a novice, but it rapidly became apparent he didn’t need any accommodations made. At all. He moved his pieces swiftly and decisively and his expression never altered from a little half-smile though Anna frowned and squinted, crowed a little when a strategy succeeded, huffed a little when he caught her out. He won the first game, then the second. The third, she managed to win by the skin of her teeth, or possibly because he’d taken a swig of the ale at a critical juncture when she also happened to reach across the board for a piece which just so happened to reveal a bit more of her décolletage and he’d sputtered on his mouthful. The fourth game was a draw. The fifth was a rout and she considered whether she should encourage him to give up his ice-harvesting in favor of consulting to her military.

“Enough! I’m about to be a very poor loser and neither one of us will like that,” Anna declared. She still pouted a little. “I can’t believe this was your first time playing Hfenetafl!”

“Come here,” he said, patting his lap. Anna went over to him but paused before sitting down.

“I’ll squish you.”

“No, you won’t. You weigh about a feather,” he said, tugging her gently towards him. If they were squished, it was a very tolerable squishing; Kristoff’s long legs and broad shoulders were somehow a thousand times more comfortable than the velvet upholstered armchair and his hand stroking back the hair loosened from her ribbon merited a shiver of unabashed pleasure.

“Shall I tell you a secret?” he said.

“You lied! You did know how to play!” she cried out. Given their proximity, her exclamation and her accompanying wriggle were highly appreciated by both of them. Kristoff tightened his arms around her.

“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t spend the game trying to protect the king,” he said.

“Kristoff, that’s patently untrue, or you would have lost. Massively, in a fashion worthy of the Sagas,” Anna said.

“I protected my queen,” he said softly, his dark eyes regarding her steadily. “I’ve got a lot of practice at that and it’s not a game to me.”

“Oh,” Anna said, suddenly dizzy with a tender, consuming desire. She tried to gather herself, which was a terrific feat, held in his embrace, that oh-so kissable hollow at his throat beckoning. He smelled of clean linen, clean man-- intoxicating. “But this was meant to be fun, to cheer you up.”

“Anna, I left cheerful behind a while ago,” he said. They were so close and yet he somehow drew her closer.

“Really? When?” she said, drawing the moment out, a silk thread on a spindle.

“When you said you lost the dice. When it wasn’t just about being lucky,” he said. He turned his head and brushed his lips against her cheek, nibbling at her earlobe. Each caress was a promise and he always kept his promises.

“You don’t believe in luck?”

“I’m the luckiest man alive,” he said, moving to kiss her lips, lingering there until she was breathless. “I figure from now on, I ought to work with what I’ve been given. I’m happy to leave supernatural forces out of it.”

Anna didn’t answer him. Not in words. But she also didn’t agree, not entirely, that there wasn’t any magic between them. They could argue about that later. Much, much later, over the dish of sweet rommegrot and its one, silver spoon.

**Author's Note:**

> I started this considering Kristoff's background and what might bring him together with Elsa and then was given several interesting prompts to play with.
> 
> The title is from Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte.
> 
> I did not invent Hnefetafl, though I made up some details about the rules: "Tafl games (also known as hnefatafl games) are a family of ancient Nordic and Celtic strategy board games played on a checkered or latticed gameboard with two armies of uneven numbers. Most probably they are based upon the Roman game Ludus latrunculorum. Names of different variants of Tafl include Hnefatafl, Tablut, Tawlbwrdd, Brandubh, Ard Rí, and Alea Evangelii. Games in the tafl family were played in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Britain, Ireland, and Lapland. Tafl gaming was eventually supplanted by chess in the 12th Century, but the tafl variant of the Sami people, tablut, was in play until at least the 1700s. The rules for tablut were written down by the Swedish naturalist Linnaeus in 1732, and these were translated from Latin to English in 1811. All modern tafl games are based on the 1811 translation, which had many errors. New rules were added to amend the issues resulting from these errors, leading to the creation of a modern family of tafl games. In addition, tablut is now also played in accordance with its original rules, which have been retranslated."


End file.
